


to try

by weekend_conspiracy_theorist



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Gen, also worf whoops missed him on the rundown, and bev geordi data riker ro laren deanna and wesley but everybody only has like two lines so
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-22
Updated: 2017-12-22
Packaged: 2019-02-18 08:05:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13095915
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weekend_conspiracy_theorist/pseuds/weekend_conspiracy_theorist
Summary: With a life as long as hers, with tragedies so fresh and experiences so wide and vast, it’s easy to set herself apart. To listen without speaking, to share wisdom without context.





	to try

**Author's Note:**

  * For [whatthefoucault](https://archiveofourown.org/users/whatthefoucault/gifts).



Guinan barely touches the chime at the door before a chorus of voices- all loud, all laughing- shout various iterations of “Come in!” A smile tugs at the corners of her mouth as the door slides open--the festivities are clearly already under way, glasses of synthehol in every hand (but Wesley’s) and beaming smiles on every face (but Worf’s).

“Mind if I join?” she asks, spreading her hands wide, and Laren shoves her glass into the air.

“The more the merrier!” she shouts, making Deanna throw her head back laughing, and Guinan adjusts her assessment with a thrum of amusement. _Most_ of the table is drinking synthehol.

Will leans back precariously in his chair to grab for the one at his desk. “Our hearts, our minds, _and_ our poker games are always open to you, Guinan,” he teases.

On his left, Beverly shuffles close enough to Geordi to make space for another person at the table, and he drapes an arm over her shoulders, wiggling his eyebrows over top of his VISOR. Beverly leans into his side with a huff of laughter.

Guinan takes her seat with an easy grace, her lips curling into a smirk. “Get ready to open your wallets, too.”

“Oh ho ho!”

“Big words from a woman who’s never played with us before!”

Worf holds up a hand, staying the chatter around the table. “Do not underestimate her,” he cautions. “She has the heart of a warrior.”

“So do you, but Commander Riker always cleans you out anyway,” Wesley snickers.

Worf scowls as Beverly buries her face in Geordi’s shoulder to muffle her laughter. “You are an obnoxious child,” he informs Wesley.

“He gets it from his mother,” Deanna stage whispers, then promptly ducks the poker chip Beverly jokingly throws at her.

“Drink?” Geordi asks, waving a bottle of whiskey with the hand not on Beverly’s shoulder. He’s got a pleased grin on his face, the role reversal not going unnoticed.

Guinan smiles, too. “Have another glass?”

“You can have Data’s.” Geordi winks. “He’s not actually drinking it anyway.”

Laren grins, reaching out to snatch the cards from in front of Data, and shuffles them with the ease of practice. “Now, are we ready to play,” she asks, sliding a sly glance around the table, “or would you all like to save some time and just _give_ me your money?”

Guinan smiles through the cacophony of a response, feeling a fond tightness in her chest. With a life as long as hers, with tragedies so fresh and experiences so wide and vast, it’s easy to set herself apart. To listen without speaking, to share wisdom without context.

Jean Luc’s been urging her to make an effort, and after their second first meeting- what can only be called _destiny_ bringing them all full circle- she even agrees she should.

Data has the cards again, dealing with a look of utter concentration, and Will slouches sideways in his chair to sling an arm around Wesley’s shoulders as he responds to some comment Guinan had missed. “What, you think I never strike out? You know, the last time I was on Risa--”

“We all _know_ what you brought back from your last trip to Risa,” Geordi mutters.

Will makes a noise of annoyance. “Alright, fine--the _second_ to last time I went to Risa, I was at this bar--”

“If this doesn’t end with a drink thrown in your face, I don’t want to hear it,” Laren jokes, picking her cards up from the table. She doesn’t pull a face, but she does squint--frustration or concentration, it’s hard to say.

Guinan follows suit, humming thoughtfully. Three queens and an ace--Data must like her after all. She winks at him as she rearranges her cards, and he makes his best effort at returning the gesture.

“ _I was at this bar_ ,” Will repeats, over the top of Deanna and Beverly’s booing, “and I was supposed to be meeting a girl for a blind date; I’d met her friends the night before- cute newlyweds, couldn’t get enough of calling each other ‘my wife’- and they thought we’d really hit it off. Well-- _apparently_ she took one look and walked right back out the door! Didn’t even want to _meet_ me. I mean, jeez--at the very least, how many chances do you have in a lifetime to meet the first officer of the _Enterprise_?”

“So far?” Guinan raises her eyebrow teasingly. “Four.”

Deanna perks up, a grin spreading across dark red lips. “Have you spent much time around Starfleet, then? I always assumed you found your way to this ship on the captain’s invitation.”

People assume a lot of things about her; normally, she lets them. But tonight, she’s _trying_.

“Oh, off and on.” Guinan takes a sip of her long neglected syntheholic whiskey, an apologetic note in her voice that she can’t quite stamp out. “It gets boring, to stay too long in one place; since I left home, I’ve never spent more than a decade at a time on a planet or a ship.”

Beverly holds up a finger, a sparkle in her eyes. “But there are _plenty_ of decades in four centuries.”

Guinan thinks of a timequake, a dinner with a close friend that repeated several hundred times before they were released, and says with utter sincerity, "You have no idea.”

“In four centuries, there are forty--”

Geordi stays Data with a hand on his knee. “Figure of speech,” he tells him softly; with an enigmatic smile, Guinan doesn’t bother to correct him.

“Were you ever aboard a previous _Enterprise_ , then?” Laren asks.

“Unfortunately, no,” Guinan tells her, with genuine regret. She'd come close, once, to crossing paths with the _Enterprise-C_ and her captain, Rachel Garrett. Her crew had offered plague relief to the northern continent of a planet of exoskeletoned pacifists while Guinan had been in the west, enjoying their extensive hiking trails and vast oral tradition.

The stories of compassion, of composure, of wit and generosity, had spread quickly across the planet; they’d mourned as a people, Guinan included, when the news reached them of the _Enterprise’_ s demise over the skies of a Klingon outpost.

“Starfleet used to be a bit more strict about having extraneous personnel aboard,” Beverly points out. She has one leg curled up beneath herself, her shoulder still pressed into Geordi’s side--the easy, physical affection among these people- these misfits, these heroes- is staggering.

Her heart clenches, bittersweet, inside her chest, and dark eyes light on her curiously. For a moment, Guinan meets that gaze, her smile soft and sad; then Laren reaches over and tugs on one curly strand of hair, her cheeks flushed, and Deanna is suitably distracted.

Trying doesn’t always mean succeeding; but she’s taken a step forward tonight, she thinks. Guinan sits back, nursing her drink close to her chest, and lets the conversation wash over her as she breathes out.

Their cards all lay discarded on the table, long since forgotten in favor of teasing and talking and laughing--Guinan wonders how often their poker games are like this, if Will’s reputation as a card shark is built on a pillar of sand; she doesn’t know, she’s never come to one before, despite her standing invitation.

She thinks she will, again.

Maybe next time she’ll tell Will Riker the story of the last time _she_ was on Risa. She smiles to herself, crossing one leg over the other. She’ll have to make sure Wesley isn’t around, of course; it’s a bit risque for young ears.


End file.
